New Year? New Resolution: Blood For the Blood God!!!

While I haven't shifted the focus of my latest army from Tzeentch Daemons to that of Khorne, I did spend a bit of time celebrating the New Year's holiday with my gaming buddies listening to some artists straight from the dawn of metal.  I know very little of their history, but I did rock out to their tunes.  Enjoy!



Lyrics for this madness can be found here.



And Bolt Thrower can be deciphered here.


P.S.  I am 99% done painting my 40 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (only eyes, bases, & touch ups remain).  I am about 20% done with my Daemon Prince, Flamers, & Screamers.  They are primed, based, and washed.  The next steps will include the highlighting and detailing, but I don't expect that to take too much time...

Tzeentch Daemons Road Test

Last night Grenn Dal, from Xeno For The Win, and I played a game to test out our respective 1500 point 40k Friendly lists for Adepticon 2013.  He had a Tyranid list, the specifics I can't remember although it wasn't a dead-hard list due to the nature of the event we are preparing for.  My list was something like:

Tzeentch Herald
Tzeentch Herald
18 Horrors w/Changeling
8 Horrors (joined by Herald)
8 Horrors (joined by Herald)
3 Flamers w/Pyrocaster
3 Flamers
3 Flamers
4 Screamers
5 Screamers
Daemon Prince

The sacred number of 9 is used where possible here.  9 total units, Horror units in multiples of 9 (when joined by Heralds), 9 Flamers, & 9 Screamers.  The Daemon Prince is obviously the odd man out there, but I have yet to find an opponent that will let me field them in units of 9.

While I did not win the roll for my preferred wave (seriously?), since this was my first ever game with Daemons, and a play-test to see how the army performs under the most common circumstances, Grenn Dal graciously allowed me to drop my preferred wave first.  Karma, being the bitch that it is, I mishapped twice on turn 1.  Oh well, the Dark Gods are fickle indeed.

We focused on the game too much for a decent battle report, but here are my thoughts:

• Deepstriking is key.  If I don't master this, my enjoyment will be limited with this army.  I was too agressive at times as well as too conservative in others.  Need to find a balance.
• Pink Horrors are miserable in assault (no shock there), but surprisingly decent at shooting, especially the larger squads where I could use volume to counter my lack of quality shooting.
• Camping Heralds inside Horror squads gave me a great deal of flexibilty with their "We Are Legion" boon.  Need to remember to declare all shooting, regardless of target, prior to rolling dice.
• Minimum squads of flamers don't hit very hard and are not at all resiliant to mass shooting or assault.
• Screamer HAVE to get the charge off against dedicated assault units.
• Vector striking is awful nice, but with the 90 degree turn restriction, Flying Monstrous Creatures in Swoop mode are a tricky ballet.

I like the list, and will be trying it out against a variety of opponents in the coming months as I work to improve my use of the army.  I may consider going with 3 units of 3 screamers and 2 units of 4 & 5 flamers going forward, but that remains to be seen.  In any event, the game vs. Nids was fun, the forces of change came away victorious in their first outing, and I'm looking forward to getting in my practice with them.

EDIT:
(Grenn Dal's list)

HQ

Tyranid Prime –lashwhip /bone sword regen

Troop

10 Genestealer – broodlord toxin sacs

10 Genestealer – broodlord toxin sacs

Fast

5 Ravener - rending claws, Devourer

5 Ravener - rending claws, Devourer

3 Shrike – lash whip/ bonesword toxin sac

Heavy

Trygon Prime – bio pulse, regen

Elite

Zonathrope

Zonathrope

And now for something completely different...

Not really, but it's been so long since I posted anything up here I was straining to think of something suitably clever.  I believe I failed.  In any event, I was previously doing yeoman's work on painting up my birthday gift that the lads got together for me.

It's coming along, but I needed a break

Painting it, however, was a bit of a challenge.  I don't want to screw it up and the fact that I've been doing nothing but Salamanders for the past few years was wearing me down.  That AND learning a new edition of the rules sort of burned me out.  Not that I hadn't done well enough with it, as I had won both a local Rogue Trader (solely on the basis of soft scores...I went 1 - 2 on the day) and a five week league held at the shop.  I just needed something...different.

I had long held an admiration for all things Nurgle, and set about creating plans and shopping list for a Chaos Daemons list with Chaos Space Marine allies.  I planned on using the Daemons both for 40K and for a Warhammer Fantasy skirmish game that we were planning for the shop.  The marines were to be pre-heresy Forgeworld models, and all was to be awesome.  Then I went to one of our Apocalypse games and almost all of my opponents had Nurgle armies.  The last thing I wanted to do was join that infectious crowd.  What was I to do?

East, I just had to Change My Ways!!!

It turns out that I was destined to head into the shifty embrace of the Dark Gods but we had guys who played all of the flavors except Tzeentch.  Challenge Accepted!  My fledgling Tzeentch Daemon army was born.

On top of that, I managed to snag one of the coveted slots in this year's 40K Friendly event at Adepticon.  Now I was burned out on the Team Tournament, but I wanted to head back to Chicago and try something different.  So Friendly tournament on Friday and Combat Patrol on Saturday is where I'll be found in 2013.

The Dark Gods have blessed my efforts with a Daemonic Familiar.
She INSISTS on helping me out every time I paint.

Obviously, I'm still shopping for suitable Battlefoam trays.  Suggestions are welcome.

The lads are still in progress, but I'm optimistic.  No competition quality here,
I'm just going for a fun, table-top ready quality.

Damn finecast.  My Changeling's staff broke like it was it's job.
I hacked off it's arm and put a Horror arm on it.
My conversion skillz are sick.

I'm done rambling folks.  Updates to follow, I promise.

The Indy Open 2013

Interested?  You should be.  Go here and redeem my faith in humanity.

P.S.  I'm not dead or out of the hobby, just been in a serious funk lately.

What's New Today?

Apparently we are.  Or, more specifically, Aerion & CVinton are.  This gorgeous tank that was converted by CVinton and painted by Aerion has a brief mention on Games Workshop's Blog.  While they may not be shameless self promoters, I am certainly the proud owner of their excellent collaboration.  Good show lads.  Good show.

A Midsummer's Apocalypse Dream

Defense in Depth

This past Sunday the lads got together at our store, Fantasy Books & Games in Fairview Heights, IL, and held one of our semi-annual Apocalypse games.  Organized by Brandon, the store manager, we have every resource at the store's disposal available to use.  Previous games have seen every flavor of formation, wonky deathstar units, super heavy vehicles, and gargantuan monstrous creatures.  We enjoy our frequent leagues and open play weeks, but these Apoc games, and the craziness that they inspire, are a real treat for us.

The occasion for this battle was for the recreation of the Battle for Helsreach Hive during the third battle of Armageddon.  There were three tables.  The largest, which was three tables put together that represented the outskirts of the hive.  A wooded table (Ork Deployment area), a "no man's land" of trenchworks, and a city board.  The trench board and city board were the Space Marine deployment areas.  Additionally, there was a board representing a space hulk and another board that was a defense laser.  Loyalists controlled the laser, which was able to fire on either the Hulk, or the main board.  Orks controlled the Hulk, which was able to fire upon the defense laser board or the main board.

Main Board, Marine Side

Main Board, Ork Side

Defense Laser Board ("laser" command is on the far end of the board)

Space Hulk Board.  Bombardment Cannon control is the 4 rooms in the middle

Like every one of our games, we had plenty of shenanigans on the tabletop.  We had three stompas, one skullhamma tank, 11 Ork planes, 2 mega dreads, and plenty of boys, trukks, wagons, etc.  The space marine players mainly brought regular units, but they brought a lot of them.  Seriously, a lot.  This was a "bring everything you own" type of game, and we were quite surprised to realize that the marine players had just over twice as many points on the main board as the Ork players did.  I don't consider the game a "win" for the marine players, even though they had control of more objectives.  Rather, I give the game to the Orks, who accomplished so much with half as many points of models.  It was truly an awe inspiring performance.

Ork-Eye View

Two Ironclads & Bray'arth Ashmantle drop in to say "hello"

Want to learn the rules for the new Ork Planes?  Play with a dozen of them.

Bray'arth fell to this Mega-Dread, but he took out a Super Heavy Rocket Launcher
& survived the resulting explosion prior to it.

It was a great time with many memorable moments that were discussed over beers afterwards.  And that, my friends, is why you play the game.

Which takes me to the after game party.  The group of guys that I play with try to celebrate each other's birthdays when we can.  We try to pool together and buy the guy something that he may not have bought on his own, typically something from forgeworld.  This time around, it was my birthday that was celebrated.  And I am truly humbled and blessed to report that this was the gift I was given:

As if that's not more than enough, they got me Salamander chapter doors as well

I don't have the means to express my thanks.  I play with a fantastic group of guys, and I hope I can show them the gratitude that they deserve.  So to Brandon, and the rest of you, thank you so much.

BANG!!!! Bang? Yes, BANG!!!!!!

Okay, I was prepping an old Vindicare assassin for this weekend's Apoc game. There was an unusually excessive amount of flash on this model, and while clipping it I noticed that one of the GW sculptors or casters had immortalized an inspired moment:

Part of me REALLY wants to paint it up like that. Anyone else ever notice this?

Edit: fixed picture